


Scales the Color of Blood

by orfaeus (hazy_daisy)



Category: Wanderlust (RP)
Genre: Gen, dark royalty orpheus au, dragon boys, tdg achilles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 12:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21815866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazy_daisy/pseuds/orfaeus
Summary: "Orpheus could turn into a dragon, so Orpheus stayed, and turned into his father."( Wanderlust AU where Orpheus is the Dragon Boy who actually has Dragon Powers™. AKA a character study, but, like, spicy. AKA an attempt to write for the Three Days Grace version of Achilles that probably won't turn out super well. AKA a lot of comparisons between Orpheus's hair color and wine, for the sake of opulence, and his scales and blood, for the sake of violence. AKA a gratuitous excuse to write Orpheus as a villain. )
Relationships: Achilles & Orpheus, the Dragon Boys TM & Hector
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Introduction

Orpheus could turn into a dragon. His brothers could not. Orpheus stayed in the castle; his brothers were exiled.

And so it was Orpheus and his father. His mother had fallen sick soon after the birth of his youngest brother, and she was gone soon after, leaving just the king and his second-oldest son, now the crown prince.

A terrible loss it had been, all his brothers and his mother too, but Orpheus quickly turned out to be his father's son—clever, resilient, and discompassionate. He listened to the king, who told him that his brothers had been unworthy of nobility; and he mourned for his mother, and celebrated the discarding of the defective royalty. He listened to the stories that he read, which told tales of daring, handsome princes, and listened to the stories that his father told him, tales of powerful, strong princes, ones who led wars, and won wars, and stood for no disobedience, and he became all of these things. He listened to his father, who told him that his mother's death was likely caused by complications at birth, and blamed his loathsome youngest brother, whose name he could barely remember.

The crown prince grew into a handsome young man—handsome, but cruel. He reveled in his power, in the feeling of being rich, and strong, and worthy of all these things. He was taught no empathy for the common people, and so felt no empathy for the common people. He liked music. He loved to dance. And he had been known to cut off the fingers of any musician who dared speak back to or disagree with him. 

Orpheus could turn into a dragon, so Orpheus stayed, and turned into his father.

Twenty-five birthdays passed. Orpheus, with his hair the color of wine and scales the color of blood, burned villages and destroyed insurgency, developing a taste and a reputation for fire and destruction. He forgot his brothers, and forgot his mother, and let his soul blacken and rot as he dressed prettily and exploited his power. And his father was proud of his son. 

The prince’s birthday was a grand affair. Music, dancing, food–and in the midst of all of it, of the red banners and the dark wood of the hall and the marble floors, Orpheus watched his dominion, watched the swirling forms of the people dancing, the whirling skirts and the flickering of the candles and the lamps, and wanted more. His eyes glinted in the firelight, as if they harbored flames themselves. Those that he kissed that night felt fangs on their tongues. 

Fear and love, he thought to himself, amounted to the same thing in the end. 

Twenty-five birthdays and thirty-one days. A rebellion broke out in a nearby village, and Orpheus went out to crush it. It left more of a message, if it was personal; more of a lasting impact. All the armies in the kingdom weren’t comparable to seeing the ruling class personally quell a rebellion. It was important that the people knew why he was the ruler and they were the peasants. 

The air rushed under his wings as he flew, and again, he marveled in the grandeur of the land, of his dominion, of what was his. 

The town came into view over the hills. Orpheus laughed, a horrid, beastly sound, and flames danced past his jaws to set the town and people alike ablaze. His scales shimmered and wavered like water as the flames reflected off of them, as red as the blood of the people below. 

When all had fallen silent, save for the crackling of burning wood, Orpheus returned to the castle to find it quiet.


	2. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Achilles returns home; though he doubts it was ever really a home to him.
> 
> Ah, well. One gets used to a place, especially when they're in charge. The castle-palace of Irihan should be no exception.

Achilles was finally returning home after all these years. Twenty-six birthdays. The castle—or palace, he wasn’t sure which to call it—had never been much of a home to him, but he figured that in time, once he’d cleared out all the greed and rot and taken back his throne, he would get used to it. 

He walked the halls of the place where he’d been born, and recognized none of it. The bodies of three people laid in his wake; two guards, one of whose armor he was wearing, and a maid who had tried to scream when she saw them. Achilles thought she might’ve seemed familiar, but decided against it. His sword dripped blood on the marble floor, like a great talon in the aftermath of hunting. He kept his gaze fixed ahead.

There was someone waiting for him when he entered the throne room.

“The smell of blood almost overpowered your scent,” said the king, voice commanding, echoing through the room. It would’ve been easy to tell that he could control dragons. “I recognized it, though. Achilles.” 

“Hector,” Achilles replied, biting sarcasm on his tongue. “I thought you might’ve forgotten me.”

“I thought you might’ve died by now,” said the king. His father. Achilles advanced towards the throne. The king stood. “That’s alright, though. I’ll sleep better tonight, knowing that I’ve gotten rid of you myself.”

Achilles lifted his sword, metal stained red. “Funny. I could say the same of you.” He flicked the blade away from him, spraying blood across the pristine white-gold marble. 

The king carried no sword. He had no need of it. He bared his fangs at his once-son in a cruel imitation of a smile, a bastardized, condescending imitation of a fatherly grin. He spread his arms, a grandiose movement, almost ritualistic. “Bold of you to walk into my throne room, wearing the armor of my guard. Unfortunately, boldness only gets you so far.”

With those words, something started to glitter around the king’s eyes, dark and crystalline. The silken robe he wore slipped from his shoulders, exposing arms that began to change, to lose flesh tones and lose flesh. Rigid scales replaced skin, black and reflective and pristine, and the king’s smile grew sharper, more dangerous, as his fangs elongated and grew sharper, larger, more numerous. His fingernails extended into claws, and his body started to change, shift, with the awful sound of cracking bones and tearing flesh, growing larger with every passing second. The broadening shoulders and elongating legs looked less and less human, hinting at a grander, more hideous design with every twist of the bone.

And then it stopped.

Achilles looked up at his father from the steps leading up to the dias, leading up to the throne, leading up to the king. The king looked down at the sword, piercing his heart, and then at Achilles, who held the hilt. 

“You—cursed child,” the king spat, finding it more difficult to talk, to breathe.

Achilles twisted the sword. His father gasped for air, clutched at the blade, cut open his palms in the process. “That’s how it’s always been, hasn’t it?”

Another twist, a savage push of the blade, and the king had no chance. He fell to his knees, gasping, cursing softly. His features slowly started to revert—first his body, shifting and cracking back into a smaller, more human frame, then claws into fingers, and scales to skin; scaled that had covered his hands and arms, but not his chest. The king looked up at Achilles, who had ascended the steps and now stood on the dias, and one last stubborn fire flashed red in his eyes before the light there flickered out completely.

The king collapsed, dead and human, onto the floor. Achilles could’ve sworn he saw fear just before death.

Achilles stood on the dias, in front of the throne of Irihan, and examined it. His sword dripped his father’s blood onto the marble. A pool of red formed around his father’s body, matching the decor. This was his throne, now. A thrill of victory went through him.

“You thought you could stop me, did you?” Achilles turned and spat on the king’s body, shoved it forward with his foot until it slid down the stairs, and grinned. The king’s crown rolled away, clattering tinnily. “Thought you could keep me away from my kingdom, my throne?” He made his way heavily down the stairs after the corpse, footsteps thudding as his armor clashed against itself. “You couldn’t. You failed,” he said, raising his foot above the king’s head. “You pompous, weak excuse for a king!” He slammed his foot down on the king’s head. 

Someone entered the room. “Well. What a spectacle.”

The voice echoed through the grand throne room, an amused timbre bouncing off the columns and the vaulted ceiling.

Achilles’s eyes darted up to find the source of the sound, sword instinctively at the ready. He stepped over the corpse to aim his blade at the man who’d entered the room.

“Not quite the welcome home I was expecting, but an exciting one, nonetheless.” The redheaded newcomer made his way further into the room, footsteps soft against the marble. “And who might you be?”

Achilles laughed out loud. “Who the hell are you? I just killed the king, and that’s your first question?”

The newcomer grinned, as if he were about to laugh in return. “I suppose you’re right. It doesn’t matter who you are. Trespassers will be killed.” He walked past Achilles, sword and all, as if he were nothing. He stepped elegantly around the pool of blood surrounding the king, and with his hands clasped behind his back, looked down to examine the paling corpse.

The red-haired man was less concerned than he likely should have been at the sight of his king, dead on the floor. Or, for that matter, at the sight of a man with a bloody sword next to the body. He was no guard, that was sure—he carried no weapon, and the red sash and almost delicate-looking boots that he wore were more indicative of nobility than anything else.

Evidently, he’d seen enough of the body. He straightened up to speak again. “Not that I don’t appreciate your…” he sucked in a breath, playfully considering his next words. “Considerate, disposal of my father, but I’m sure you understand that I can’t just let you walk away.” He turned, leaving his back to Achilles for a moment as he walked away from the dead king—toward the crown. He bent to pick it up, and turned back to face Achilles. He blew on the gold, as if brushing away the dust was his biggest concern for the crown. “It wouldn’t sit well with the citizens to know that the man who murdered their king is walking free.” He grinned again, and now, closer, Achilles could see a flash of fangs. He reached up, crown in his hands, and delicately nestled it into his red hair. “And my people are always my greatest concern.”

So. This was his brother. Interesting.

“Well.” Achilles flicked his sword to the side, sending another spray of blood across the marble floor. “No need to thank me. He was my father, too, after all. Now, little brother, if you’ll hand over that crown—” he grinned back, sardonic, mocking; imperfect and off-kilter and human. He lifted his sword to aim at the prince once more. “I have a throne to take.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mkay gaymers, how are we?
> 
> we really trying to write for achilles out here. just doing our best, honestly. violence is always an easy out.


	3. Speculation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Children left with mirrors and their own thoughts may find their way down curious paths. Children with mirrors and their own thoughts and scales and crowns and thrones may find others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (yeah, whoops, wrote this all past midnight. it exists now, so. there it is.)

_ What does it mean, beauty? _ thought Orpheus. The looking-glass did not answer his question. Not directly, anyway.

Still, he considered himself. Beauty.  _ My mother was beautiful, before she died. Fitting. That I should come from her. That something impure and ugly should be the thing to destroy her. _

He’d come to the conclusion, not a very long while before, that he was beautiful. And he must’ve been right. What else in this kingdom could compare? And what in the world could compare to his kingdom?

He smiled at the looking-glass. Boyish charm, some might have called it, if only at a glance, if only seeing his age. Looking closer, others might have called his charm something closer to danger. Dangerous, he fancied himself, even then, twelve birthdays passed in silk and stone and fire; dangerous, and beautiful, and powerful. Candlelight glinted off of fangs and danced in his eyes. He stared for a moment, entranced by the movement of the flame, and it seemed to deepen, further into his eyes, into himself.

_ Of course I am beautiful. What could be more beautiful than fire and danger and power, all together in one? _

He held out a hand, and smiled, fanged, eyes glowing in the reflection of the fire and of their own accord, a brilliant, shifting golden red. His hand, still small, lithe, distorted for a moment, cracked. Bones shifted. Talons emerged. And Orpheus watched, entranced as he had been with the fire, as from the grotesque mess of his hand a plating, an armor, of dark red scales emerged. The candlelight swum in the reflection. Orpheus allowed the reaction to stop, for a moment. Not to reverse it. Not quite yet. He wanted a moment to reflect on the color, the brilliant jewel tone that his other form produced, that his dragon was.

The firelight danced, in his scales, in his eyes, and Orpheus considered the scales. Significant. Powerful. Beautiful. Perhaps others thought strength to be the defining feature of a king, but Orpheus had never followed that doctrine. Stories of strong knights never ended in kingship. Defeating a dragon didn’t grant you a kingship. It was taming a dragon, overcoming it, becoming it—that was what granted you power. That was what granted you a kingdom. Not strength.

Sleeping maidens in towers were significant because they granted power to the knight that married them. That was how one won a kingship. Not through the climb to get there. Not through love. Through power.

_ Perhaps beauty, _ he mused,  _ is just a mark of who wears their power well. _

Orpheus had seen ugly kings. It seemed to him their worst sin was gluttony; their greed; their envy; their constant wanting of more. Orpheus was never going to be an ugly king. He would never fall prey to gluttony, or greed, or envy, because as far as he was concerned, everything there was to want in the world belonged to him already, and everything else would be his, given time.

Perhaps sin made one ugly. Orpheus considered it. Gluttony. Greed. Envy. And then wrath. Orpheus didn’t think he would ever find himself a victim of wrath. Anger rarely wormed its way into his heart; after all, he had the will and the power to deal with any problems before they truly became issues. And it wasn’t as if he’d been angry with the village he’d burned (and he would not be angry in the future, when he did it again, and again). It’d been an exercise of power. Uprisings were bad for the kingdom, he knew this from his father, and Orpheus had decided to do what was best for the people.

It was best for the peasants if the kingdom was peaceful, he’d surmised. Therefore, burning the uprisings was only sensible, so that the rest of the kingdom might live in peace. The flames, besides, were beautiful.

Sloth, he had no worries of. Orpheus was quite active in the cultivation of his kingdom, even for a child. Lust certainly did not present itself as a problem to a twelve-year-old boy. And this left pride.

_ This is not pride, _ Orpheus thought.  _ No more than a dragon killing a sheep is pride. I know my worth. My actions are simply an acknowledgement of that. It is only fair to gaze upon beauty. It is only fair to take what one owns. _ He smiled at his reflection, again, this time flooded red with the color of his scales.

He’d often pondered what to call that color. It wasn’t wine, not quite, not like his hair. Not the red of the kingdom’s emblems, either, a rather royal, dignified shade. Not red like rubies, or fire, or brilliant sunsets, or red like a sunrise when blood has been spilt.

There was a thought, though. Blood. He watched his reflection as his visage wavered with the dancing of the candle flame. He’d seen blood, before. Bleeding from harsh burns, from sword wounds, from knees and hands and arms, scraped while trying to escape the burning rubble of a village that had lit torches of their own before the prince had descended from the sky like an omen of beauty and gore, gleaming in the last throes of twilight. Bleeding from stumps of hands and necks and open throats of guards and maids and courtesans and musicians who had disobeyed his father. Who had disobeyed Orpheus. His eyes glowed with fire and satisfaction. Blood. That was the color. Red like pain and beauty. Scales the color of blood. 


	4. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, but dear brother.” Orpheus caught Achilles’s eyes, and Achilles saw a red gold there, reflective and shifting as if his eyes themselves were ablaze. Bit by bit, he could see the glamour, the beauty, slipping from the prince's smile. His fangs looked sharper, now. All that was left there, in the twisted corners of his cherry-red mouth, was cruelty. “You can't take back something that was never yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look, did i butcher achilles's characterization? yeah. but i have mars's permission so nobody can get mad at me for it, including me, because it's my life and my writing and i do what i want.
> 
> she's short but i think short updates are just the vibe for this piece

“Is that so?” The expression on Achilles’s brother’s face was easily identifiable. Amusement. There was something else behind it, though, something that pinned down the new information that Achilles had revealed. His eyes glinted, watching, calculeting, processing the facts he’d been given. He made no attempt to move, either to allow Achilled to pass, or to stop him. “‘Little brother’. How charming.” He grinned back at Achilles, but there was none of Achilles’s rush of excitement; only something cold, predatory.

His smile may have been disarming, but his eyes told another story. Achilles was being reassessed. The crown prince tilted his head, just slightly, almost animal-like, as if he were trying to understand something. As he cocked his head to the side, the crown on his head glinted in the light that still streamed through large curtained windows in the last throes of twilight.

After a moment, the prince laughed, melodic and clear; the kind of laugh developed for show, not inspired by humor. “Well. You may want the throne, but I’m afraid you’re not next in line. Weak, exiled mistakes aren’t deserving of a throne. Besides, you’ve just killed the king, and as his beloved son, I’m honor-bound to execute you.” That laugh, again. Carefree. Calculated. “Not that I wouldn’t have tried, anyway. You killed the old man without a scratch on you, and it will be  _ satisfying _ to kill the kind of peasant that could do that.” 

Achilles aimed his sword at the prince’s head—the opulent golden crown, surrounded by hair the rich color of wine. The decadency of it all infuriated him. “I’m no peasant,” he spat, “and don’t think I have any qualms about going through you to get my throne, Orpheus.”

If Achilles had expected the name to evoke any sort of reaction, he would have been wrong. Orpheus looked positively bemused, eyebrows arched, maddeningly unconcerned. “Why? Because I am your ‘little brother’?” The side of his mouth quirked up in a half-grin. “Don’t worry. I expected no courtesy of the sort.” He considered Achilles for a moment, and there was silence. Achilles stood, tense, anticipating any movement. “It started with an ‘a’, didn’t it? An ‘ah’ sound?” A moment more passed, and Achilles felt incredulity rising in his chest. “Ah, well. It’ll come to me.” He turned, ostensibly to ascend the dias. 

Achilles scoffed, and took a step forward, bringing his sword point closer to Orpheus’s throat. ‘You can’t seriously expect me to believe that you forgot my name. You weren’t that young.’

The prince stopped his movement for a moment and fixed a cold, blazing stare on Achilles, devoid of the humor from before. “I loved my mother very much. I do my very best to forget all of her mistakes.”

Achilles stopped, just for a moment, until his anger and adrenaline both spiked. He rushed at Orpheus. His yell cracked, but never faltered.

Orpheus dodged out of the way of the swinging arc that Achilles’s sword made—sloppy, for a first attack; fueled by rage. 

He laughed again. Absolutely infuriating. It sounded almost musical, and when he spoke, his voice lilted—almost unnoticeable over the rushing of blood in Achilles’s ears. “You may have defeated my father, but let’s face the music, brother mine.” He grinned again, and Achilles could see his fangs better than ever. “You’re one of the weak ones. The defective children.” With another yell, hoarse and throaty, Achilles swung his sword, intent on silencing the prince. The attack came closer, but Orpheus dodged away just in time. He moved fluidly, as if he were dancing, and he grinned madly. “Just what do you think you’re doing here?”

“I’m taking back my throne,” Achilles gritted out, launching another attack. Closer, closer, and Orpheus didn’t move, and Achilles’s feet hit hard against the blood-slick marble floor, his armor crashing against itself. A cacophony. Closer, and closer, until his sword connected with a reverberating clash against Orpheus’s arm, raised to intercept the attack at the last moment. As Achilles brought his blade back close to himself, he thought he saw blood through the new slit in the arm of Orpheus’s flowing white shirt. He saw the prince’s hands, then, however, and something in him chilled as he connected the sound with his sight. Orpheus’s hands were no longer human—they were clawed, scaled, misshapen. The taloned paws of a dragon. His scales, a deep, consuming red, reflected the dying embers of twilight. 

“Oh, but dear brother.” Orpheus caught Achilles’s eyes, and Achilles saw a red gold there, reflective and shifting as if his eyes themselves were ablaze. Bit by bit, he could see the glamour, the beauty, slipping from the prince's smile. His fangs looked sharper, now. All that was left there, in the twisted corners of his cherry-red mouth, was cruelty. “You can't take back something that was never yours.”


End file.
